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Mixed Pickles

A pickled mixture of cucumbers, peppers, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, beans, and tomatoes seasoned with mustard seeds, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine cucumbers, green peppers, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, string beans, and green tomatoes in a large bowl.

  2. Soak the mixture in a strong brine for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the vegetables for 3 hours.

Season and pickle

  1. Sprinkle in black mustard seed, white mustard seed, and black ground pepper.

  2. Boil the mixture in enough vinegar to cover, adding a little alum.

  3. Drain again.

  4. Let cool.

  5. Mix in ground mustard.

  6. Cover the vegetables with cider vinegar.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the crisp, bulky base of the pickle mix.
Cauliflower
Adds firm texture that holds its bite through brining and boiling.
Black mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavor that deepens as the pickle sits.
White mustard seed
Adds milder mustard flavor and a pleasant pop of texture.
Ground mustard
Thickens the pickling liquid and adds sharp mustard aroma and heat.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives tang.

The step that matters

Boil in vinegar with alum. Boiling firms the vegetables and alum helps them stay crisp. Too long a boil turns them soft, so timing matters for a crunchy pickle.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, cabbage, beans, tomato, mustard):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, cabbage, beans, tomato, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

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